She did not reply for a moment. Then: “It’s most of it.”

“What’s the rest? The woman at the restaurant?”

I could feel her body tense.

“Was she right?”

Her answer was like a sigh: “No.”

“Do you know Jean Archer?” I asked.

She lifted her head from my shoulder and pulled her knees up and hugged them. She continued to gaze at the fire.

“Do you?”

“No, Bobo, I don’t. I know of her, of course, but I don’t know her.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She turned to me with a puzzled look. “No. Why should I?”

“Just wondered. Can I do anything?”

“Hold me.”

“That’s easy,” I said. I folded her in my arms. Her face nestled into my chest. “Anything else?”

“Yes.”

“Name it.”

“Stop time.”

“Not easy,” I replied.

“I know.”

“But if we can’t stop it, let’s make the most of it.”

“How?” she asked.

“Make it worth remembering.”

“Is that enough, Bobo?”

We returned to bed when the fire faded. We did not make love and we did not talk. Amy lay close to me, her back curled against my chest, her head resting on my arm, her hand laced into my hand. I did not know if she slept. Her breathing was not easy and purring.

At sunrise, she rose from the bed and tugged at me playfully.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s a new day.”

“Where do you want to start?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” she answered. “Come on.”

I followed her into the bathroom and we showered together in the large, claw-foot bathtub under a heavy, stinging spray of heated water that billowed steam. The steam coated our bodies like smoke gliding across wood. She pulled a large, soft towel from a hanger and draped it across the back of the tub and urged me to lie down, and there, with the water raining on her hair and shoulders, sliding from the tips of her nipples and swirling into bubbles that splattered across my face and chest, she opened her legs and knelt over me and, with her hands, guided me into her. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Her mouth parted slightly, and the water and steam spilled across her lips. Her body rocked gently against me, slowed, stopped, quivered. She looked down at me. The water trickled over her face in narrow veins, like rivulets from crying.

“Two more days?” she asked.

“Two,” I said.

We were eating breakfast when Carter called. He spoke briefly with Amy, saying something that made her laugh, then she handed the phone to me.

“Surprise,” she whispered. “Carter found you.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” Carter said before I could speak. “You’re not eloquent enough to do it justice. Just let me imagine it.”

“Good morning to you, too. What’s up?”